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> "bundling" Windows 95 with MS-DOS (Win95 was a DOS overlay, but installed Microsoft DOS by default, even though DR-DOS could very well have acted as a "shim")
by TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
> "bundling" Windows 95 with MS-DOS (Win95 was a DOS overlay, but installed Microsoft DOS by default, even though DR-DOS could very well have acted as a "shim").
It would be more accurate to say DOS is an overlay on Windows 95, once Windows 95 has booted. The DOS façade may be so convincing that the OS seems to be running on DOS, but that's the exact opposite of the truth: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24063 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071224-00/?p=24...
Microsoft could have let people install DR-DOS on Windows 95; DR-DOS is similar enough to MS DOS for the magic to work. But it would have sucked for the end user if they had to buy a second OS to use old apps and drivers, and it's hard to say what the user would gain. The fancy multi-tasking features of DR-DOS presumably wouldn't work while Windows was running, for example.
- rusk 6y agoI don’t think this is quite right ... it was a fully fledged DOS (aka DOS 7) that ran first, described in your linked article as the “bootloader” what you are thinking of is the dos box that is described later, and maybe there is some confusion with Windows NT. I myself many times booted to the pure DOS environment many times using boot disks as some games around that time weren’t facilitated by the emulated DOS environment...
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y agoIf you boot directly into DOS then you're running DOS, yes. But once Windows 95 has started, there is no DOS “underneath”.
- rusk 6y agoIt’s there somewhere. You can “drop to dos” again - but I guess what you mean is Windows has its own kernel and doesn’t rely on DOS for anything beyond booting. Fun thing I discovered once is that after you shut down, the screen that says “it’s now safe to turn off your computer” actually hosts a hidden dos prompt and you can start windows again by typing “win”